Ep.63 The Real Reason the Breathing "Isn't Working" for Your Anxiety

If you've ever known exactly what to do for your anxiety and still couldn't make yourself do it... this one's going to hit. Because it's not about lacking the knowledge. It never was.

EPISODE SUMMARY You've read the books. You've done the research. You know breathing helps. You know mindfulness is good for you. And yet — when the anxiety actually hits, you check out, go through the motions, and end up right back where you started.

In this episode, Sari gets real about why knowing isn't enough. The anxious programs running in the background are designed to keep you safe — which means they are also designed to keep you exactly the same. The safety bubble feels comfortable. But it's a trap.

She breaks down what actually has to happen in the moment anxiety shows up: the choice, the presence, the willingness to sit in the fire for two minutes without giving up. She talks about your nervous system, the vagus nerve, and why slowing down isn't "doing nothing" — it's the whole point. And she calls out the sneaky way we seek validation for staying stuck instead of asking what's working.

This is a fired-up episode. And if you're someone who knows more than you're doing, it was made for you.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Why knowing what to do isn't enough to change your anxiety
• How your safety bubble keeps you stuck in the same patterns every day
• What it actually means to be present during a breathing exercise
• Why seeking validation from others can reinforce the anxious identity
• How the vagus nerve connects to your heart — and why that changes everything
• What choosing a new identity looks like in a real, 2-minute moment
• Why sitting in the fire isn't painful — it's just unfamiliar

REFLECTION

• What behavior or tool do you keep abandoning before giving it a real chance?
• Are you looking for someone to tell you it's not working — or are you looking for what actually is?
• When anxiety comes online today, what would it look like to stay in the room with it instead of checking out?

FREE NERVOUS SYSTEM RESET

 If anxiety has you checked out before you even start, download the free 5-Minute Nervous System Reset to help your body slow down in real time. https://thegrowthgoddess.net/free-meditation

WORK WITH SARI 

Ready to stop doing the same thing every day and expecting something different? Book a free Freedom Roadmap Session and let's map out what it actually looks like to change. https://link.thegrowthgoddess.net/widget/bookings/freedomroadmapsession

You're not broken. You're not behind. And you're not alone. If you made it here, that means something.

Time Stamps

00:00 — Why Sari is fired up today 

02:07 — The client who has all the knowledge but can't put it into motion 

03:29 — How the anxious safety bubble keeps you doing the same thing on repeat

05:51 — Why breathing "doesn't work" (and what's actually happening when you try) 

08:18 — Sitting in the fire: why discomfort is part of the process 

10:38 — The hair salon story and how we seek validation to stay stuck 

12:42 — Fight or flight, the amygdala, and why you can't think your way out of anxiety

15:09 — The vagus nerve: why your heart is leading more than your brain 

17:17 — The first step: just admitting it 

5 minute nervous system reset ad for midroll

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So I'm just gonna warn that today I'm a little fired up. And I'm fired up because we have a choice every day of who we are deciding to wake up and be. We have a choice. Now, for most of us, we wake up every day and have the same thoughts as yesterday. We wake up and brush our teeth the exact same way. We wake up, get out of bed the same side of the bed. We take a shower or make our coffee or tea the exact same way. And we have the exact same actions, beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors as the day before. So if that's the case, then we truly are living as if we are Groundhog Day. You guys have seen the movie with Bill Murray, Groundhog Day, where everything's the exact fucking same. So it begins in the morning, the choice to say, I'm going to do things different today. That if my fears, my anxieties, my control are coming online just like the way they did the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that, then pretty much today's not going to be any different. So we have to wake up knowing that we have a choice that today can absolutely be different, but we have to choose. We have to choose the minute the fear or the anxiety or the control comes online, the minute we recognize that. But again, so much of the work I do with people is first just recognizing when it's coming online. So I'm a little fired up because I'm working with a client and she has a lot of great knowledge when it comes to everything she's taken in, the conscious knowledge of what she's doing. Now it's one thing to know, but it's not enough to know. We have to know how. We have to actually put what we know into motion, into movement, into practice, right? Okay, we can sit and watch somebody ride a bike all day long, but until we actually put our feet on the pedals and our ass in the seat and try to pedal down the street, we don't know. You don't know until you are in the forward movement. You're in those shoes. So I'm fired up because the client that I'm working with, the anxious preparing, protective programs are really, really strong. They when we're anxious, we create these the safety bubble that we're living in. And we are only gonna do things in this exact way because this is what we have deemed to be safe. But in reality, those exact behaviors, those exact beliefs of what is keeping us safe isn't gonna allow us to change. And so it's a choice. It's a choice waking up every single day that I'm very aware of everything that's running the show. But am I willing to decide to show up and to not just be like a bystander and the bleachers watching, but to decide, oh, that mech, that thing is coming up. Right. For me, it was always panic in my body. Oh, I'm recognizing that I'm having heart palpitations right now. What was I thinking that created these heart palpitations? What did I believe was going to happen that all of this is showing up? So now I get to decide what am I gonna do with this? And so I teach a lot of my clients to breathe because it slows down our nervous system. But if I'm trying to teach you how to breathe, and the whole time you're just like, well, this isn't working. I want to be out of this. What's next? I have coffee with so-and-so in about an hour. I have these things I need to do. Is the breath working for you? No, because you're checked the fuck out. So what are you being present with? Are you being present with what's keeping you safe? Are you being present with the distraction that's not even allowing you to be present in your experience, right? How many times have we had a conversation with someone and they're talking and we're coming up with our response or what we think about it? So because we're doing that, we're not actually listening. And this is so important because we have to listen. We have to be able to slow down. When I ask people to breathe, it's to put all of your awareness, all of your attention on your breath, noticing the rise and fall of your diaphragm, of your chest, and to be present with it. And if other thoughts come in, okay, they come in. I recognize that they came in. Let me just come back to my breath. And it's every time that you recognize something wanted to pull you away, but you decided to come back to what you're supposed to be focusing on. And my client deems this as hard work. And it's not meant to be hard. And she doesn't like to do it because she feels like she has to show up for work. But again, the choice. What's easy is going back to the same behaviors that keep you stuck, anxious, and control, and stuck in fear. That's easy. And it's gonna be a little bit hard, right? Just as we learn to ride a bike, we usually fall down and scrape our knees a few times. So we have to be willing to sit in the fire. That's what those old programs, the things that are stuck in fear, the things that are stuck in anxiety, they don't want us to do that because that means that we are going to be changing our identity of who we are. And it's like, fuck you, don't do that. So you have to choose in that moment of, okay, this might be a little difficult for a few minutes. Because in this few minutes, my body is gonna buck and kick and tell me that I need, I have other shit I need to do that's more important. But again, the definition of insanity, or shall I say, a definition of insanity, is doing the same behaviors and habits every single day and expecting something to change. So that's gonna require us to sit in the fire. That it's gonna be uncomfortable for a second. But I promise you, just like with anything, just like the first time you went to the gym and you tried to pump those weights, right? Or somebody was telling you to do sprints on the treadmill, that's not comfortable, right? But you know that pushing your body is what's gonna get results. And so, in the same aspect, how are you gonna push your mind to get results that are different than what you've been experiencing? Are you gonna do two minutes of a workout class and be like, eh, fuck it? I don't need this, and then expect your body to like look like a premiere athlete. No. It's a choice. And how many people, right? Like when you think of a workout, how many people, and and I'm definitely one of these people, you show up to a workout, you don't really want to go, but you go. And getting there is half the battle. And then who has ever said, after a workout, I wish I didn't do that? Because you know you feel better. You showed up, you pushed, you sat in the fire. And so, in the same situation, am I gonna settle my body down and tell this little, you know, wild little rabid thing to sit and to stay? We're gonna try something new. Or after two minutes, are you gonna give the fuck up and just be like, meh, nah, I got other things to do? Who are you gonna show up for? Are you gonna show up for the old identity that keeps you stuck in your fear, that keeps you stuck in anxiety, that creates all of this control in your life? Or are you gonna show up for you? And also another important note is so I worked in a hair salon for 17 years, and something that is notorious, I mean, probably every work situation, but it seems that the hair salon is as bad as it gets when it comes to drama or gossip, right? So we would have certain clients come in, and there would be maybe like a snarky client or something that happened, and everybody would just like join in the break room to hear the drama. And why is that? Like, why does everybody join in for the drama? Because the person that is experiencing the drama, she wants to share it with everyone else to validate the emotions and the feelings that she's having. And most of the time, they were validated by the other people. So, in the same situation, right, if you're someone who is struggling to slow down your body using breath or using any of the tools that I've recommended, and then you find someone else who's also struggling with that, are you looking for validation that you're still a victim of the process? Or, you know, on a better note, is could you ask them, well, maybe what's working for you instead that I'm not noticing, but to just straight up need validation of like, oh girl, me too. That's validating the old identity of fear, of anxiety, of control. And probably is not giving you motivation to show up the next time it surfaces to do the breath or to have the awareness to slow down your nervous system, right? Like when we're in fight or flight, when we're in stress, when our cortisol is high, when we have adrenaline pumping through our body, our amygdala is turned on in our brain. This is the alarm bells. We can't use the prefrontal cortex, the neocortex to rationalize. We can't use any of that. The only time we can do that is when we actually slow down. And that's the whole point of using something to really slow down your nervous system to get into a parasympathetic state. Which parasympathetic state is your rest and repair, your rest and digest, your restoration. This is where your cells can rejuvenate and, you know, die, turn over and build new ones, right? But if we are in fight or flight, it's really hard for our body to restore itself. And also when we slow down, this is when we get into more of our heart space, where the brain gets to turn off and the heart gets to turn on. There's this thing called the vagus nerve. I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast and you're diving into new ways to help you with your anxiety, your fears, your control, then you're probably heard of the vagus nerve before. So there's a great video that I've seen on YouTube where they the scientist is looking at a cadaver body and is showing the vagus nerve that's going from the brainstem all the way to the heart. But what's wild about this is the energy, the flow of movement that goes through this vagus nerve is 80% from the heart up to the brain. It's only 20% from the brain down to the heart. So, what does that tell you? It tells me that the heart is giving more information to the brain than the brain actually giving information to the heart. But we are letting our minds, our brains, make decisions for us instead of our hearts. And that's because we're in some sort of fight or flight. We're activating adrenaline, we're activating cortisol. But when we can slow down, when we close our eyes, we get to have a different type of vision, a vision that's coming from our heart. Our heart's energy can radiate further than our wing span, right? Our mind, not so much, but our heart activates everything. But it's really hard to activate your heart if you're in fight or flight, if you're feeling the victim, if you're looking for validation of that victim mentality that this isn't working for me, that this is hard, this is a struggle. Are you willing to get quiet and to listen to the things that are coming up and to stop letting it be a struggle? Let that identity go. So that's all I have for you today. If you have any questions, if you have any reflections, if you need support on this, please feel free to reach out to me. I love supporting people on their journeys. But again, there's a reason why this podcast is called Fuck Anxiety, because you're ready to sit in that fire. You're ready to try something new because what you've been doing isn't fucking working. And it's gonna take this, it's it's not gonna be painful, right? This idea that it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be painful, it's scary, it's all an illusion. Because there is a part of ourselves that probably this little child within each of us that experienced something that has created these walls, these identities based off one thing they experienced as a child, and now has created an entire external experience based off of that. And this is what I love to heal with people in hypnosis. I'm not the healer, you are, but you have to show up. And I just get to turn on the flashlight and show you what's possible and that it's not as scary as we think. And sometimes the first step is just admitting it.